Latency/gameplay sub-par, mostly unplayable

LunaRae · August 2014

Need some technical support, basically the game has been running extremely bad. I don't even need to check pings, FPS or anything of the sort - I can tell when the game is running poorly. I performed an internet speed test and everything looks good on my end. I load up ESO and go into the character select screen. By itself it's already running at 250ms, not even playing the game. Sit here for 5 minutes and it stays at 250ms. Alright so now I go ham on my computer and load up League of Legends, DotA2 and Battle.Net launcher for some Hearthstone. I get 3 patchers all downloading content simultaneously and each sit WAY below what ESO is running at. Up to here see example1

So I let the patchers finish and then load up all 3 games and start 2 bot matches in LoL/Dota2 and a card match in Hearthstone. Yea, no big dif minus LoL coming in close behind ESO. But still, ESO is awful!!! Up to here I'm still only sitting in character select, doing NOTHING in this game. See example2

Ok so now I load up my character and jump into everybody's favorite town Riften (for the pact, amiright?) ESO just gets worse from here. The gameplay is awful. I press H to mount my horse and wait 2 seconds to see the mount animation. Do you know how hard it is to play a game when you're having to delay every reaction you want to make to compensate for poor networking? See example 3 where it reaches 305 barely just getting into the game.

Over the past week I'm getting frequent disconnects which lead to "unknown error" and extremely bad response times.

Is there anyone out there experiencing this, and/or have recommendations??

ZOS_HugoP · August 2014

Greetings @LunaRae‌

At first, we would like to recommend you to follow those troubleshooting steps, that may alleviate the issue you are facing:

Please make sure that you disable all Add-Ons and remove EsoHead or/and EsoHead mapmarker completely. Restart the client.
If you are using a WiFi connection, we recommend that you switch to Ethernet instead - a WiFi connection can be disrupted by many sources, which directly impacts its stability.
Make sure the following ports are open in your router settings:
- TCP / UDP Ports 24100 through 24131
- TCP / UDP Ports 24300 through 24331
- TCP / UDP Ports 24500 through 24507
- TCP / UDP Port 80 and Port 443
If you don't know how to open ports on your router please refer to the manual included or run a search on Google mentioning your router model. Here's an example for NETGEAR routers.
Reset your DNS settings:
Open the Windows console prompt as an admin ( your console can be found here by default: C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe) and run the following commands:
- netsh i i r r
- netsh winsock reset
- ipconfig /registerdns
- ipconfig /flushdns
- ipconfig /release
- ipconfig /renew
Reset your Networks settings:
- On your Control Panel, click on "Network and Internet" and open Internet Options.
- Connections Tab: Click on LAN settings. On the LAN settings window, uncheck all the boxes and click OK.
- Advanced Tab: Click on Reset and then click on Reset again.
- You may have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
Make sure to run both the launcher and the game as admin and in compatibility mode for Windows XP-SP3 (the game file is located here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Zenimax Online\The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client\ESO.exe):
- Right-click the file and select Properties at the bottom of the list.
- Once the Properties window is open, select the Compatibility tab.
- Select the option to “Run this program in compatibility mode” and from the drop-down menu, select “Windows XP SP3” (it may say Service Pack 3).
- Select the option “Always run this program as an Administrator”
- Confirm these changes by clicking OK and close the window.
- For ease of use, right-click the eso.exe file and select “Send To…” From the subsequent slide-out menu, select “Desktop (Create Shortcut)”. This will allow you a very easy, quick way of opening a game running in compatibility mode.
Include an exception for the ESO.exe file (located here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Zenimax Online\The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client\), the launcher & account.elderscrollsonline.com to your anti-virus software and your firewall.

If your issue is still not resolved after doing so, we invite you to contact our Customer support team and provide them the following information:

What ISP are you using?
From which country are you playing?
the time frame of the latency (i.e in the evening, night, morning)
Is the latency punctual or constant during this time frame?
A game consultant file

Thank you!

Slovenian_Gamer · August 2014

Hahhah compatibility support set to XP SP3? Zeni, why would anyone do such a thing? XP is useless nowadays... just saying

BornDownUnder · August 2014

To put it simply, your latency displayed for eso is more or less normal for anybody living outside of the US, ranging anywhere from 150 to 350ms... You should have no real issues with input or latency at those numbers.

I come in at ~220-230ms from checking it for a period of ten minutes, living in Australia.

First of all, some questions need answering:
Do you have the same issue with other games?
Where do you hail from? example: I am from Australia.
What is your network connection? Wireless or Ethernet? example: My connection is wired.
What is your Bandwidth Rate? example: My Bandwidth Rate is 50Mb down, 3Mb up.
Are you capped for Bandwidth Rate at present?

What I advise you to do is ignore the 'disable all addons' rhetoric, it is not caused by addons.
Ignore the compatibility advice, if the game starts and does not crash then it is compatible with your operating system.

Make sure your drivers are up to date.
If you have internet firewall on, make sure your ports are open for traffic flow.
An ipconfig flush can help if your system has been up and running for a long period of time. Same for a modem/router cold reboot, unplug it for ~20 seconds or so then plug it back in.
Add exceptions to your AV program/s for eso.exe if you run AV programs (You should)

If you can 'surf' the net, watch youtube videos without issues then leave your network settings alone, it is not on your end in regards to your network settings.

Please Zeni, can we actually get some tech support instead of the same copy/paste stuff...

warbladex · August 2014

I'm actually a systems administrator and yea it could be many many things. First thing to check is do a traceroute to the zenimax server and look at the hops (the devices it goes to before it reaches zenimax). If you find your hops are high before it even gets to Zenimax server then its the ISP's problem. Also try lowing your graphic settings see if it helps. To use tracert open command line type tracert then server ip address example tracert www.google.com

BornDownUnder · August 2014

Warbladex, many thanks for mentioning that...

Hard to recall what steps there are when there are many and one has had a long night, posting at just after 7am.

My statement that if you can surf the net and watch youtube videos fine then it isn't on your end.

That being said, the actual route to the particular servers that Zeni leases/owns for their data center could very well have issues. It really does depend alot on where you are located if this is the cause of the latency issue.

LunaRae · August 2014

Thanks for the responses all, I'm away on a brief weekend vacation, when i return Monday I'll try out some of the troubleshooting provided by all